A Haunted Man
by Dendera
Summary: You're a haunted man, Rupert. You always have been." Set the night before the episode "Lies My Parents Told Me," Giles receives a visit from The First.


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Title: A Haunted Man

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Rating: PG

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Summary: Set in mid-season 7, Giles receives a visit from The First. Takes place the night before the episode "Lies My Parents Told Me." Mild season 7 spoilers.

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Author's Note and Disclaimer: I never understood why Giles gave in so easily to Wood's request to help him get rid of Spike (not to mention his weird out of character behavior the entire season), and from that general confusion, sprung this vignette. By the way, if you haven't realized this already, please be aware that Buffy belongs not to me, but Joss Whedon. Trust me, I'm not worth suing.

*~*~*

The motel room, in comparison to the boisterous commotion and conflict of the Summers' residence, was spartan, sterile, and eerily quiet. Due to the number of occupants in the aforementioned household, along with the continually increasing ranks of potential slayers, Rupert Giles had volunteered to find himself alternate lodgings. Besides, it wasn't as if Sunnydale had a lack in vacancies these days and, as he had assured them all, he would have no problem finding a nearby location. Remarkably, and yet of no great surprise to him, no one bothered to argue. 

There had been a time, not long ago, when this wouldn't have been the case, but Giles knew there was no point dwelling on the past. They had all changed considerably in the time he was away. The onslaught of war had hardened them, forced them into a reality harsher than that of the past six years. Buffy, perhaps, most of all. 

Wearily, he poured himself another glass of the Scotch he had splurged on at the nearly deserted liquor store. After a day of quarreling with Buffy over the potentials' training, battle strategies, Spike and everything in between, he felt he owed this to himself. Perhaps it would help lull him to sleep; he had suffered too many burden-filled, sleepless nights these past few weeks.

He swirled the contents of his glass, staring pensively into its amber depths. When exactly, he mused bitterly, had he fallen out of favor with Buffy, and what had been the cause? He had left them—not once, but twice—and he'd have been a fool to pretend they wouldn't hold it against him. That things might return to the way the always were.

"What's the matter, England? You're looking a little down and out."

The familiar sensual voice startled him from his gloom, and he felt himself grow cold at the realization of who it belonged to. It was a long moment before Giles could bring himself to answer.

He peered darkly at her from over the top of his glasses. "You're not Jenny."

The raven-haired apparition, a perfect copy of his beloved Ms. Calendar, gave him a knowing smirk. "Always were 'the glass is half empty' type, weren't you Rupert?" She sauntered closer, black-brown eyes smoldering meaningfully. "We haven't seen each other in what…five years now and no warm welcome for a long-lost love?"

Giles turned his back on the spectre, shoulders sagging with a fresh weight of guilt, as he crossed the room. When he spoke, his voice was distant, hard, and yet betraying the emotion behind it. 

"You're not welcome here," he intoned lowly, the words coming from deep within his throat. 

She appeared beside him, looking amused. "Didn't think I needed an invite. I thought we might talk. You know, catch up."

"You thought wrong."

The evil in Jenny's likeness fixed him with an impish smile, dark eyes glittering. Its guise was complete, the performance impeccable, and though he desperately wanted to believe that she had returned to him, though he had waited for years in vain for some sign, Giles knew with a sickening certainty that this façade was merely just that. His Jenny was gone; and a mockery stood in her place.

"Just go," he muttered hoarsely, pacing back towards the nightstand and the glass perched there. "I won't be another gullible ear for your lies."

She shook her head at him, clicking her tongue in reproof. "That's just your problem, Rupert. You never listen. A whole year of coming onto you," her tone was warm, reminiscent, "and you barely heard me over your own stuttering."

Against his own will, and an affront to his better judgement, he felt his hand begin to shake as he lifted the glass to his lips and took a generous swallow. He would ignore her, and surely then, she would go away. 

For an empty moment, there was silence, and then he felt a cool displacement of air as she materialized once more before him. "Do you ever wonder…" she tugged shyly at one of her many rings, looking wistful. "Do you ever wonder what it would've been like if…" Her sentence trailed off, as it was meant to, leaving him to reel with the full impact of that which was left unsaid.

He felt his stomach clench as he sank down onto the bed, the familiar if-only's ambushing his thoughts with dizzying force. He wondered all of the time, especially at night, when alone between the cool sheets, what it would be like to wake to her sleepy smile and tousled hair. When memories of her scent and touch would replace the nightmarish images of glassy brown orbs and lifeless limbs. To remember her as the beautifully witty, vivacious woman she once was, instead of as a broken porcelain doll, brutally misused and discarded. 

The phantom Jenny Calendar took his pained silence as a signal to continue. "Of course you do," she crooned with feigned sympathy. "If you'd kept a closer eye on Buffy, she wouldn't have caused Angel his soul, and you and I…" her voice seemed to caress every word, "would have found so many better uses for this bed."

"It wasn't Buffy's fault," He countered quickly. Had he just slurred those words? "She--she couldn't have known."

"England, you're stuttering. Besides, you're not listening again." She murmured coyly, "I never said it was Buffy's fault. I said it was _yours_."

Giles forced himself to look up at her, bloodshot eyes watering from too much drink and too little sleep. "M-My fault?"

"Angel was a loaded gun; a tragedy waiting to happen. You must have known that—I thought they included those basics in your Watcher training." Her brow creased, delicate features looking troubled. "And here you are, ready to let the whole thing go and happen again. Have I been gone so long you've forgotten that the pointy end of the stake goes into the vampire? You must be losing your touch, snobby."

He emptied the contents of the tumbler. "_Spike_."

"Yup. The bleached wonder. Last time I checked we hated him."

Giles closed his fist tightly around the glass, until it dug into the callous skin of his palm. "It's complicated…he has a soul now." She wasn't Jenny…he mustn't humor her. "He's…he's a good—he wants to be a good man." Why did he feel he was trying harder to convince himself of this fact?

Jenny smiled broadly, affectionately. "Now I remember why I loved you. You were always unfailingly sentimental about this sort of thing." The smile twisted into skepticism, her eyes laughing with triumph. "But you're not fooling me, Rupert. I know how much you hate and distrust him, no matter what excuses Buffy comes up with. You haven't forgotten _Angelus_ had a soul once too."

With an explosive crash, the tumbler shattered against the far wall, splintering into a hundred different pieces. "_Get out of here._" He bit off fiercely, jaw clenched and voice so strained he could scarcely speak.

But she didn't.

"You're a haunted man, Rupert. You always have been." She leaned closer, her determined gaze bearing into his. "You know why? Because you let your ghosts follow you around. You cling to the past, and you carry around every mistake, but you never let yourself have any closure. You never _fix_ what's broken; you run from it." 

Giles looked away, feeling the terrible weight of her words, the truth behind them unbearable. He felt tired, defeated, and much older than his forty-eight years. He lay down upon the bed, turning his back to her. 

The First cast him a pitying look, a sad smile lifting the corners of Jenny's lush mouth. "Know what I think? I think you like it that way. Because without the ghosts to keep you company, and without the guilt to keep you busy, you'd be a lonely shell of man."

"They're not children anymore. They don't need another shadow, especially one that's of no use to them."

He squeezed his eyes shut, hating himself for having let her affect him so. Hating her for being right.

"Remember that, lover," she called softly in afterthought. "Remember it when the end comes."

He couldn't bring himself to look up from the pillow; he never saw her vanish. 

*~*~*

Fin


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